When you take a look at the leaderboards, you can see that Sunwuko TR outperforms PoJ TR, which leads to the question: What is the point of the new set, if the only build you can use with it, is even worse than almost the same build with an old set (which also provides a lot of other builds). I was already wondering this when 2.6.7 patchnotes were released as a quick calculation revealed that the damage is lower on PoJ and you can even use more useful support legendaries with Sunwuko (i.e. Mantle of Channeling, Hexing Pants, Lefebvres Soliloquy). Of course with PoJ you don’t need to invest in RCR as much, but you benefit double if you do with Sunwuko + Captain Crimson Set, because of additional Damage Reduction.
I think the biggest mistake for the new set was to kill Sweeping Winds as a real source of damage or not really enabling it in the first place. With the removal of the Eye of the Storm instead of changing it to make it actually viable and no changes to kyoshiros soul (i.e. make the damage part of the legendary affix and buff it a little), Blizzard decided to not allow sweeping winds to deal any meaningful damage. If you consider this, the increase of the damage buff to Sweeping Wind on the Vengeful Wind Fist Weapon is absolutely pointless as it’s by far not enough to make Sweeping Winds viable. This also leaves PoJ with a vacant weapon and belt slot, which could be great for build flexibility. When you consider the options for the belts though, you are basically stuck with either Witching Hour or Captain Crimson (of course in combination with a ring of royal grandeur and either boots or legs of CC). While Witching Hour just doesn’t feel like a great option and really fitting to the build, CC actually locks a ring slot and more importantly completly removing any flexibility you might get by using ring of royal grandeur with a legendary in any slot instead of a PoJ set item (i.e. Mantle of Channeling, Hexing Pants, Lefebvres Soliloquy). Also, you don’t really need the RCR from CC with PoJ. While there are definetly more options for the vacant weapon slot, they again don’t really feel fitting for the build either. So please consider changing/buffing kyoshiros soul and/or (re-)introduce another sweeping winds legendary affix (i.e. Eye of the Storm or another legendary item without affix)
So the only usable damage source for PoJ at the moment we are left with is TR, which actually seems to perform worse than Sunwuko TR. I also read about an old Exploding Palm build with Tempest Rush, which sounded like a fun way to take advantage of the ALL damage buff on PoJ, but some testing revealed that it doesn’t work at the moment. I believe the reason for this is, that the damage of exploding palm is calculated when you apply exploding palm instead of when it actually explodes and since we only get the damage buff from PoJ while channeling TR with Sweeping Winds active, the buff is not applied to Exploding Palm. Maybe there are actually some other options to take advantage of the all damage buff of the set, im not seeing, but I think that all damage is a great resource to rely on when creating builds as it inherently enables flexibility, but that doesn’t seem to be the case for PoJ at the moment. I hope Blizzard can find a way to enable the use of the all damage increase for build diversity. Some interesting options can be found here: How to make Justice TR different than SWK TR
So I guess my point is: Make Sweeping Wind a viable damage source for PoJ and/or give us a options to use for the actual ALL damage increase from PoJ. Also maybe nerf or change TR for Sunwuko or buff it for PoJ, so that PoJ as a momentary skill specific set isn’t worse than the broader and more general sunwuko set.
What do you guys think about Sweeping Wind as a damage source? Do you have any ideas for making use of the all damage buff on PoJ? What other changes can be made to make PoJ not feel like a worse version of Sunwuko?